Physicists have long noted that observing some phenomena actually changes their nature. In finance, the equivalent is known as Goodhart’s law, after the British economist Charles Goodhart, who in 1975 argued that once a measure becomes a target, it loses the very properties that made it a good gauge to begin with.
—Robin Wigglesworth in the FT: ‘How a volatility virus infected Wall Street‘
“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”
“We get the economic policies we deserve,” he writes. “And as long as a lack of economic understanding prevails among the general public, making good policy choices will take a lot of political courage.”
A Nobel winner explains why we get the bad economic policies we deserve
The thought process that went into building these applications, Facebook being the first of them, … was all about: ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?‘
Sean Parker, ex President at Facebook
Facebook, the almost-monopolist in the attention economy.
Use my marker 